


It's Always Slow Then All at Once

by Netterz



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Debbie realizes she loves Lou, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Lou already knew she loved Debbie-duh, but a bit sad along the way, mostly during/post-heist, some back story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-15 22:39:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15423186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netterz/pseuds/Netterz
Summary: The first thing Debbie notices when Lou's long arms wrap around her shoulders, and her lips press to Debbie’s temple is that she still wears that same spicy perfume.For all of the planning Debbie did inside, how to deal with this wasn’t something she ever managed to figure out.





	1. Realizing Always

**Author's Note:**

> I'm usually a perpetual lurker, but this movie, and pairing, and all of the great fics have lured me out my usual corner. 
> 
> The first chapter has some back-story, but the rest will be set during and post-heist.
> 
> Rating may change later on.
> 
> First fic--please be kind!

It hit on day 25, of month three, in year five, like a train pulling into the station a million hours late, while she sat on the third tier of the bleachers in the yard, playing out the logistics of getting the necklace off the would-be mark’s neck without them noticing.

The flashbacks continued in a stream to make every rom-com she’d missed while on the inside, proud:

 _First,_ Lou holding her hair after a casino-job went wrong when they were both young, and stupid, and too focused on the blackjack table to notice somebody slipping something into Debbie’s drink. Three sips later Lou cut the night off and half carried her back to the room they’d hustled earlier in the day. She gently pulled the blonde pixie-cut wig off and tied her brunette tresses on top of her head while Debbie fell apart on the bathroom floor.         

“Shit,” Debbie cursed with a huff, flailing angrily in the direction of the toilet flush.

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart,” Lou leaned forward and flushed the vomit away on Debbie’s behalf. “I should have been watching your back more closely.” Lou blamed herself, because of  _course_  she did, even though this wasn’t on her at all. Debbie whimpered while her head swam, and she started to shiver from being on the tile floor in just her too-short, too-tight cocktail dress. “I’ve got you,” Lou whispered, wrapping a blanket and her arms around her partner.

Debbie burrowed herself into Lou’s shoulder, the combined scent of hotel shampoo and the expensive spicy perfume Debbie had stolen Lou for her birthday calming her nerves. She stayed there, Lou rocking her back and forth gently, concentrating on matching her erratic breaths to Lou’s steady ones, until she pushed her away roughly to throw her head back into the toilet bowl.

 

 _Then,_ standing next to Lou at the harbour, in the middle of a thunderstorm so thick Debbie could barely make out Lady Liberty’s outline through the fog.

“He was such a bastard,” Lou muttered from behind her mop of wet, platinum blonde hair.

Debbie didn’t say anything. Just shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her car coat. She knew Lou well enough to know that she didn’t need words of wisdom, and didn’t want words of comfort; she just wanted to sit with it for a little while longer.

Another clap of thunder rolled through, pulled Lou from the inside of her head. She tugged the signet ring stamped with the Miller family crest roughly from the index finger on her right hand and regarded it sitting in her palm when the next flash of lightning lit up her silhouette.

Lou had always had a special flare for spectacle.  
Blue eyes narrowed, flitting back and forth between the ring and the water.

“You’re sure?” Debbie broke her silence, closing her own chilled fingers around Lou’s, around the last piece of family her partner carried with her.  
“Yeah, Deb, I’m sure,” Lou breathed out. “I came here forever ago to start over,” blue eyes met brown. “It’s time to finally let go.”  
“Do you want more time?” Debbie offered. “We can stay—the rain doesn’t bother me."  
“No,” Lou was firm. “I’ve said all the goodbye I had to say.” Debbie squeezed her fingers around Lou’s softly before slowly uncurling them and dropping her arm back to her side.

In a sudden burst of motion, Lou wound back and flung the ring into the Hudson River. The splash from wherever it sunk invisible amidst the rain rippling the surface. Debbie reached up to brush the hair blocking Lou’s eyes from her view away from those cheekbones sharp enough to cut the tension in any room.

“Let’s go home,” Debbie honestly can’t remember whose line it was, but it never really mattered. She took Lou’s hand in her own, threading their fingers together, and led her quietly back to the one bedroom apartment they managed to con rent money for each month. A change into dry clothes and two bottles of cheap red wine later they sat curled into each other on the armchair in front of the living room window, watching the rain continue to fall outside. Lou didn’t say anything, she didn’t cry either, and eventually drifted off with her head tucked into the crook of Debbie’s neck, where her pulse beat steadily against Lou's temple.

“It’ll be okay again, Lou,” Debbie muttered against her still-damp hair. “I promise.”

Sometime in the middle of the night they migrated to bed and in the morning, while Lou slept off the wine, Debbie quietly slipped from their bedroom, and their apartment, and to a hole-in-the-wall jewelry shop owned by an eccentric couple. She paid actual money for a simple silver band with ‘ _reckless_ ’ engraved across the top in curly script. Sliding back into bed she slid it onto Lou’s naked index finger, hoping she'd sleep through the movement but feeling her stir despite the effort. Lou looked from Debbie to her finger and back in confusion.

“You’ve been reckless as long as I’ve known you,” Debbie shrugged. “Reckless enough to be exactly who you are, reckless enough to convince me to be exactly who I am, reckless enough to drive that damn bike way faster than you should.”

Lou didn’t have any words, just launched herself at Debbie, and, whether out of sadness or joy, or maybe just emotional overload, she cried. 

 

 _Lou_  being the only face she wanted to see after everything with Claude went to hell, even if it was just to hear her Aussie drawl say ‘I told you so.’

 _Lou_ , who sent her a single note, exactly one month into her sentence. " _It’s all safe for you when you get out. –L_."

 _Lou_ , who Debbie knew she couldn’t write or call because she needed to protect her in whatever small, pathetic way she might be able to manage.

 _Lou_ , who after five years of near radio silence still picked up the phone, graciously refrained from telling Debbie to  _kindly fuck off_ , and instead listened to Debbie ask her to take out a credit line because she had a plan—and it was going to be big. Lou didn’t commit to doing what Debbie asked, but she didn’t hang up on her either.

 

 _Lou_ , Debbie realized slowly and all at once. It was  _always_  Lou.

 

***   *   *   *   ***

 

The first thing Debbie notices when Lou wraps her long arms around her shoulders, and presses her lips to her temple in the car is that she still wears that same spicy perfume. For all of the planning Debbie did inside, how to deal with this wasn’t something she ever managed to figure out.

“Hey, hey, take it easy,” she plays it off, at a loss for any other option. “Been in the slammer.”  
“Oh,” Lou goes along with the back and forth, like always. “I just thought you’d changed your number.”

Debbie loves the loft even if Lou said it's a bitch to heat. It feels like  _Lou_ , but in brick and mortar instead of flesh and blood, all polished surfaces and rough edges, and weathered beams.

It feels like home.

‘It  _doesn’t feel like home,’_ she reminded herself silently.  _‘_ Lou _feels like home_.’


	2. I Bought It for You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear there's a happy ending on the horizon! I just have to get these two terribly stubborn women TO that happy ending. 
> 
> I tried to be true to the rest of the team in their bits, but please don't hesitate with any suggestions--writing this many amazing individual characters is a challenge.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE THE RATING CHANGE: it's not for this chapter, but it WILL be for the next one!

The look that washes over Lou's face when Debbie tells her that it can’t be a proposal because she doesn’t have a diamond yet feels like every yesterday wrapped into one for the first ten seconds, and then it shifts.

Debbie watches the guard rails go up in Lou’s eyes and feels her heart clench. It’s not that she doesn’t understand—she does. She hurt Lou Miller more than anybody should ever have to be hurt, and she silently vows that this  _will_  work, and she  _will_ fix it, and when she  _has_  a diamond, everything will change.

The logistics of the team and the plan and the execution eat up Debbie’s days and energy, but she revels in being this close to Lou again, breathing the same air for all of the hours from when they wake up to when everybody falls into their beds, exhausted.

She can’t sleep, though. She tries. God, she tries. She’s tired. but when she closes her eyes her ears tune in to every errant sound. Her shoulders tense, waiting for somebody to grab her right out from under the blanket. Her stomach coils into knots while she tries to think about nothing at all, but can't forget the smell of her musty prison mattress, un-feel the cold, sharp edge of a shank, or block out the shuffling of onlookers turning to look the other way while it all culminates.

She avoids late-night snacking with the girls after a particularly tight knot in her stomach pulls taught in the dark and sends her shooting out of bed to vomit while everyone else is peacefully asleep. She’s careful to be quiet about it—learned that on the inside—but she thinks Lou might suspect something is up when she stops wanting to order late-night Chinese food after their planning sessions.

When Debbie does manage to fall asleep she jerks up in bed just a few hours later, always on a sharp inhale, always breathing heavily until she remembers where she is, never able to fall asleep again.

She could do without the knots and the difficulty breathing, but Debbie doesn’t mind having the extra hours while the loft is peaceful. She perfects their plans, memorizes blueprints an extra time over, runs timelines on repeat. Anything that could possibly go wrong has a contingency plan, and a contingency to the contingency by the time Lou appears beside her on the beach at sunrise, two weeks before the day, bleary eyed, wearing jeans and a leather jacket that Debbie’s sure had been in her own closet before she was put away.

“You ever sleep anymore?” Lou looks at Debbie, Debbie looks straight ahead. “I hear you, you know,” Lou’s accent is thick and full of gravel this early in the morning, before she’s had a chance to make coffee. “We share a wall.” 

Debbie nearly cracks, very nearly falls apart all over Lou. But she can’t—knows that if she starts she won’t be able to stop and that isn’t an option right now. Right now, she needs to be sharp, to be together, to be on her game. “I’m fine, Lou,” she dismisses. “It sounds different here than inside. Still getting used to it again.”

Lou, for her part, doesn’t buy it. Steps in front of Debbie, blocking her view of the water, and tries to look her in the eye. “That’s bullshit, Deb, and you know it. What’s going on with you?” 

“Nothing,” Debbie tells her, refusing to meet her gaze.  
Lou puts a hand on each of her shoulders. “Don’t lie to me, Deb.”  
“I can’t, Lou. Okay?” Debbie finally meets Lou’s eyes, and her heart aches for the silent pleading from her other half.  
“Okay,” she gives in, at least for now. “Okay.”

With Lou’s hands now holding her upper arms, and the assurance that she won't have to attempt articulating the mess inside her brain for the time being, Debbie drops her head forward until it rests against Lou’s shoulder, leaning in, letting part of her weight be supported. Lou stays still for a moment, then slowly shifts forward to wrap her arms properly around Debbie, who fists one hand into the side of Lou’s jacket.

 

* 

 

Inside, Nine-Ball has risen from her dead-like sleeping state to wander into the kitchen at the same time as Amita, who is showered, dressed, and ready for the day. They meet pre-coffee Constance at the counter. They can always tell whether Constance has caffeinated by the state of her bedhead. Lou was the one to point it out, and none of them have come up with an explanation quite yet. The girl wakes up looking like a wild-thing. Then, somehow, whether from finger-combing or sheer force of nature, her hair slowly straightens to its usual state over the course of two, sometimes three cups of coffee with enough sugar that Debbie argues it can’t actually be called  _coffee_  anymore.

“Aww,” Amita sighs, looking out the bay window that faces the water at the same time as the front door clicks open and Tammy walks in, slinging her coat onto the rack by the door, and walking across the living room to join them. 

“What’s going on?” Tammy asks, looking around at the assembled group, trying to puzzle out where Debbie and Lou have wandered off to. She’s quite sure they wouldn’t leave the youngest members of the brood without any kind of supervision around Lou’s prized liquor cabinet and kitchen-knife set. Besides, Lou's bike and the Toyota were still parked in the garage when she pulled in.

“Moms are having a moment,” Constance says through a chug of coffee. “So married. Am I right?”

“Married?” Tammy looks out the window to the scene that has the other three transfixed and sees Debbie and Lou wrapped up in whatever universe it is where they orbit around each other. 

“Uhm, yeah, aren't they?” Amita looks at Tammy who shoos the girls around to the other side of the counter so that she can make all of them something for breakfast, because honestly if she doesn't they'll probably just drink coffee and raid the snack cupboard  _again_. She's also discreetly forcing them to turn their backs to the window in order to face her while she talks, giving the pair outside some form of privacy for whatever it is they’re trying to sort through. Amita accepts a cutting board of mushrooms and an onion to chop up for omelettes.

“Not married,” Nine Ball throws out. “I checked when I was cleanin' up their footprints,” she shrugs when Tammy looks scandalized at the invasion. Constance and Amita are wide-eyed and excited for any juice they can get. “Jus’ thought I’d check. Didn’t wanna wipe out any legal crap they migh’ need later.” 

“So,” Constance draws the word out. “They really aren’t a thing?” 

“Deb and Lou,” Tammy pauses, looking for anything other than two of her best friends for Constance to concentrate at least some of energy on. She settles for having her grate cheese. “They’re just Deb and Lou.”

“But it’s so obvious,” Amita insists, returning her cutting board, now covered in finely diced onions and thinly sliced mushrooms.

“I never said they weren't in love,” Tammy turns to pull a carton of eggs from the fridge, then about-faces to retrieve a non-stick frying pan from the rack hanging overhead. “They’ve been gone on each other for years,” she sighs, flipping the burner on to medium-low heat, pouring a bit of vegetable oil into the pan, and adding the onions to sauté. “But they aren’t together.”

“Should we do something to help that, then?” Everyone jumps when Rose speaks from the chair in the corner that she’s apparently occupied the whole time.  
“OMG, yes,” Amita squeals.  
“I can sew a frock for each of them,” Rose ponders. “I have just the design from my 2014 collection. It’ll need to be shortened of course, the colour changed, but…”   
“None of you will do any such thing,” Tammy is stern with her warning. “They’re… They don’t need us meddling.”   
“But, what about the good of the wo...” Constance tries to argue. 

“No,” Tammy has the final word, but the others let out a collective cry of disappointment.

 

*   

 

Lou side-eyes the window into the kitchen when she hears a strangled chorus of groans. “I think we’re collecting an audience,” she nudges the side of Debbie’s head with her nose. “The children and Tammy seem to be awake.”

Debbie straightens and seeks out Lou’s eyes. Neither of them say anything, they don’t need to. A quiet understanding passes before Debbie nods her head, Lou mirroring the action. 

“Typical,” Debbie says when they hear another chorus from inside, this one less muffled than the one before. “The one morning we don’t have to hunt them all down.” 

 

* 

 

“Nice of all of you to join us on time for once,” Lou drawls as she and Debbie walk through the door to find everyone trying very hard to pretend they’ve been very busy doing anything other than look out the window for the last half hour.

“I’m always here on time,” Constance says over the rim of what must be her second cup of coffee, if the state of her hair is any indication. 

“You sleep here,” Debbie rolls her eyes. “Tripping down the stairs before even brushing your teeth doesn’t count.” Constance looks like she’s going to try to rebut, but can’t come up with anything that would gain her any ground and returns to her coffee with an indignant shrug.

“Alright,” Lou calls the group back to order, retrieving herself a cup of coffee. “Security system changes. Are we ready to make that possible?” 

“You ready for our trip to the museum, Tam-Tam?” Debbie sweeps across the room, stealing a sip of Lou’s coffee on her way, and pulling a coat around her shoulders. Tammy slides into her own coat and tucks the portfolio containing the  _Banksy_  securely under her arm.

“Yeah,” she nods. “Nine-Ball?”

“Ready,” she waves from behind her laptop screen, sliding her earpiece in. “Jus’ let me know when we good to go an I’ll bring up the cameras.”

 

 *

 

"Hey," Tammy says when her and Debbie and in the car, pulling out of the garage. "Everything good?"  
"Of course, Tam-Tam," the glint of the heist sparkles in Debbie's eyes. "We're going to put all of Danny's cons to shame." 

Tammy doesn't press. Prison is, well, prison. She never expected Debbie to come back totally unscathed, knows that Lou didn't either. But this version of Debbie worries her--worries Lou even more if the way she watches their friend is any indication. She's going to have to feel all of it eventually, the problem is that they can't predict when that dam will break.

 

*   *   *   *   *

 

Debbie’s wanders back to the beach, in the evening this time, a few days later to get away from all of the noise inside—it’s amazing just how much volume seven excited girls can produce when pieces of the plan come to fruition.

 _Three excited girls_ , she chides herself,  _if she’s being fair_.

Tammy gives the occasional cheer, but otherwise sticks to her mirthful smile, Nine-Ball measures everything that comes out of her mouth, and Lou,  _Lou_  prefers that smirk full of smoke and sin over making a scene. It’s really just Constance, Amita, and sometimes Rose who express their glee through whoops and hollers of excitement.

 _But_ , Debbie figures,  _maybe_   _those three are doing the right thing by living it up on behalf of the whole group_.

When she hears the warehouse door open and slam shut, followed by pointed footsteps she doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is.

“We need to talk,” Lou says. “Claude Becker,” she spits his name like it’s toxic.

“It’s not going to matter,” Debbie does her best to keep her voice level. She’s good at this, good at keeping her cool. Except with Lou. Lou is the only person that’s able to get under her skin without even trying.

“You do not run a  _job_  in a job,” Lou turns angrily, desperate to do something other than just stand still. “Why do you do this?” She spins back to face Debbie again. “Why does there always have to an asterisk?”

Debbie shrugs, eyebrows and all.

“You frame him,” Lou tells her. “I walk.”

“Stop,” Debbie breathes out. She needs Lou to understand. They need the finger to point at somebody other than them, and  _Claude Becker_ , the snake, has the past to make it plausible as soon as anybody looks into him.

“This is just like the last time,” Lou turns her back to Debbie and paces down the beach. Debbie knew this moment was inevitable from the start, she just didn’t expect it to come like this. She wasn't  _ready_  for it to come just yet.  _She_  knows it’s  _always_  been Lou, but she’s never told Lou that.

“Lou… Lou… Lou!” Debbie goes after her, the way she should have every time their entire lives. “He sent me to jail,” she may as well be begging. “You have no idea what that’s like.”

“Yeah, well,” the look Lou gives her is shattering. “He’s gonna do it again.”

“He’s not,” Debbie half-whispers, runs a her fingers from Lou’s elbow, down her forearm, tugs lightly until Lou takes her hand out of her pocket so Debbie can lace their fingers together. “He’s not.”

“Promise me this one is 100%, Deb,” Lou looks at her with glassy eyes and that’s what gets Debbie more than anything else. “I had to figure everything out from the beginning, all over again, six years ago.” Debbie knows—dammit, she knows from her soul, inside out. She opens her mouth to make a promise she intends to keep with everything she has but gets distracted by the raised pattern on the cool band around Lou’s pointer finger. She raises their linked hands and smiles unbelievingly.

“You still wear it,” her words nearly drowned out by the tide.  
“Pretty sure you  _bought_  it for me, Jailbird.”  
“I did,” she traces the letters. "I promise."  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments feed the muse <3


	3. The Fake Story is More Fun to Tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is heavy--please don't hate me. I'm sorry! I'll fix it! 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING:  
> This chapter contains discussion about past sexual assault. It's isn't overly graphic (I don't think), but it is present.
> 
> If this is something that you would prefer to skip:  
> it starts where the first line break appears, and ends at the second.
> 
>  
> 
> I struggled writing this part, so I hope it reads as well as the first two chapters.

The night after the heist the liquor flows well into the next morning, and then it flows again when Daphne joins their ranks—the final piece of the  _how_  falling into place in each of their minds.

“That’s a lot,” Constance blurts into the middle of the stunned silence after their final cuts are revealed. 

A calm settles over the group that has the girls smirking a little more indulgently. They toast to Claude’s fall from grace, to Debbie’s plan, to Amita’s jewelry-making skills. 

"And to family,” Daphne adds and everybody raises their glasses especially high for that one because that’s what they all are now—irrevocably and undeniably.

This celebration is much demurer than the one a few days previous. Lou brings out the good liquor, the kind you sip instead of shooting, and even Constance falls into the moments of peace while vintage records spin in the background. One by one the group slips off to their beds, lulled to sleep by soon-to-be-full bank accounts and the knowledge that nothing requires them to rise any earlier than noon the next day. 

Debbie and Lou are the last ones left in the would-be living room after Nine-Ball stubs out her last joint of the night and exits in a sweet-smelling haze. Debbie pulls herself off the couch, empties her glass in a gulp, and migrates to the kitchen to put the tumbler by the sink. Lou rises from the armchair she took up residence in hours ago and turns off the stereo, bringing the turntable to a stop, and sliding the vintage Paula Abdul album they had somehow ended up putting on back into its sleeve, before following Debbie. Lou finds her staring at the drinkware sitting in the bottom of the sink with a distant look.

“You gonna sleep tonight?” Lou asks, leaning back against the counter.

“Yeah,” Debbie turns to face her, hoping the confidence she doesn’t feel comes through to the Aussie more than it does to her own ears. “Less to keep my mind running in circles now.” Lou’s close enough that Debbie could touch her—back arched deliciously, fingers quietly drumming against the edge of the counter, but stops herself short.

“Right,” Lou doesn’t need to raise an eyebrow, her voice does it for her. 

In the end Debbie can’t resist the itch in her fingertips to feel the silk of Lou’s shirt. “Night Baby,” she says, hand squeezing Lou’s upper arm, trying to ignore how easily the pet name slips out before turning to leave the room. 

“Sweet dreams, sweetheart,” she hears Lou whisper belatedly, but she’s already halfway up the stairs.

 

*

 

The heist being over does not help Debbie’s ability to sleep. It makes it worse. Other than the small details of where to fence the various pieces that the crown jewels will be broken down into, there are no more distractions. Nothing to help loosen the knots in her stomach; nothing to stop the prickling under her skin from crawling up her fingers, through her lungs, down her spine, and eventually have her stumbling into the bathroom that joins her bedroom to Lou’s, kneeling in front of the toilet to heave. There’s not much other than her last two glasses of vodka to come up, burning worse than when it went down, but the dry heaves continue, spasming through her ribs painfully. She doesn’t manage to be as quiet this time.

Lou sits on the edge of her bed staring at the closed door to the shared bathroom. She usually keeps the other door locked, even if for some strange reason she has somebody staying in that room rather than the handful of others the loft contains. Figures most guests can just deal with using the perfectly good bathroom in the hall. But, sharing with Deb doesn’t really count as sharing, and Lou wanted her to have at least something of an en-suite and the privacy from the rest of the group that it would provide. She can hear her more clearly this time than other nights, and balls her hands into fists trying to find the willpower to stay where she is—Debbie will come to her when Debbie is ready. When she hears a dry heave cut in half by a sob she can’t stop herself. 

Debbie would know it was Lou in the room even if she hadn’t entered through the door to her bedroom. She knows the feel of Lou’s presence anywhere. 

“You don’t have to watch this,” Debbie rests her head against the edge of the toilet bowl. “It’s not sexy.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lou whispers, crouching down beside Debbie, brushing the long brown waves over her shoulder, running a hand up and down her spine. Debbie’s shape is hidden by an oversized band t-shirt that definitely used to belong to Lou, and comes just far enough down Debbie’s thighs to hide most of her black boy-short panties, but she can feel the way each vertebra is more pronounced than it used to be—than it should be. She knows Deb has lost weight without even having to look. 

“You shouldn’t have to deal with this,” Debbie tells her when she finally feels like she has enough control over her body to slowly sit up, flush the toilet, and cautiously stand to brush her teeth before her legs all but give out and she ends up caught in Lou’s arms, back on the floor. “I left you,” she rambles. “I left you, and you were right, and I never even said I was sorry,” she fights Lou’s grip, but doesn’t escape.“I was stupid, and I got myself put away, and I have to live with everything that means, but you shouldn’t have to.” 

“Is that what you think?” Lou adjusts the two of them so they’re sitting cross-legged, face to face. “Is that why you won’t talk about the things that won’t let you sleep? Or eat for that matter?” Lou takes Debbie’s face between her hands and forces her to look at her. “Whatever this is, it's going to be the death of you if you keep trying to bottle it up, and that would be the death of me.” Lou drops her hands from Debbie face, all her cards lying on the table. Debbie stays very still and very quiet for a long time. Long enough that Lou wonders if she’s ever going to speak to her again.

“They…. ‘thing… food… third week,” Debbie mutters, staring at the wall over Lou's shoulder.  
“What?” Lou leans forward, afraid to spook the her, but needing a closer vantage point to hear her properly. 

“My third week in,” Debbie says on an inhale. “I hadn’t managed my way onto kitchen duty yet and somebody put something in my food,” she squares her jaw and looks at Lou of her own will for the first time since Lou walked in. “It made me sick every hour, on the hour for most of the night. In my cell. In front of four other women who watched like I was the latest  _Real Housewives_  episode.” Lou feels her insides drop. She reaches out but Debbie gently pushes her hand away—she won’t get through this if Lou gets too close. “They wanted a show. I didn’t give it to them. I didn’t cry. I didn’t curl up in a ball. I just went back to my bunk to lie very still each time,” Debbie looks at the floor, focusing on the slightly crooked black and white tile work—it was so like Lou to leave the place just off-kilter enough to stand out as genuinely vintage, rather than painted-to-look-trendy. “I think that earned me some respect.”

Lou tries to reach out for Debbie again. “I’m so…”

“Everything was sort of okay after that,” Debbie flinches away from the touch and cuts off Lou’s attempt to apologize for one more thing that isn’t her fault. “They left me alone, I left them alone, and I hatched my plans. On the first day of year five one of my cell mates was released on parole, and the rest of us got to make a new friend. I thought I might like her—career criminal, even if it was more the cocaine side of the industry than thieving.”

A pang of something ugly goes through Lou’s chest at the thought of Debbie finding another criminal that would betray her.

“Apparently,” Debbie continued, still staring at the floor, now concentrating on the textured finish of the plaster baseboards where they met the tile edges. “She didn’t like that I didn’t want to be part of whatever club she was starting so she had her other friends rip me out of my bunk by my hair to beat me under a cold shower. Got some peace and quiet after the guards walked in on the middle of that one.” 

Nauseating realization hits Lou. “You didn’t get  _yourself_ thrown into solitary, did you?” 

“The real version doesn’t make as good a story,” Debbie tries to shrug, but can’t quite bring herself to go all the way through the motion. “None of them had any weapons so I only had to spend one night in the infirmary.” 

Lou isn’t sure if her blood starts boiling before or after Debbie tries to make a joke out of getting beaten into solitary. Debbie has taken to staring at her hands in her lap, picking at her cuticles. Lou can’t stand it anymore—needs to touch Debbie and doesn’t let anything else be an option this time—gently cups her right hand around Debbie’s forearm and slowly—so very slowly—traces her way down to Debbie’s wrist, and finally links their fingers together. It’s in the motion of shifting Debbie’s arm that she finally sees it—can’t believe she didn’t notice it earlier, and if her blood was boiling before, Lou’s ready to go supernova now. 

“Deb?”  
“Hm?”  
“What aren’t you telling me?” 

Debbie freezes, tries to drop her arm back down to cover the thick scar running down the inside of her thigh from just shy of the edge of her panties, halfway to her knee but Lou won’t let go of her hand. She finally looks up with something that Lou has never seen on Deborah Ocean in the fifteen years they’ve known each other—terrified eyes.  

**___________________________________________**

 

“I… They…” Debbie opens and closes her mouth a few times without much success at forming a coherent sentence. “When I got out of solitary she wasn’t in my cell anymore. Had been moved to somewhere down the hall,” Debbie exhales, hunches her shoulders in defeat, and squeezes her eyes shut before she starts talking again. “I guess she’d made a friend in my cell because she appeared over top of me two weeks later, in the middle of the night.”

Lou thinks  _she_  might vomit this time. “On top of you,” she exhales as deeply as she can manage. “You mean…”

“She tore my pants, and put her hand in my panties, and,” Debbie’s breath comes in gasps, her voice trembling. “I could feel her fingernails inside me. She called me a  _‘dried-up bitch,’_  and then told me that I wouldn’t be able to keep my legs together for a little while to remember her by, and she sliced my thigh open,” the final straw of Debbie’s resolve crumbles and she falls forward, into Lou, who pulls her in tighter than she’s ever held anybody in her life. “And now,” Debbie chokes out. “I can’t sleep because I keep bracing for all of those things to happen all over again.”

 

Debbie’s quiet when she cries. There are no gut-wrenching sobs to give her away from the other side of a door or wall. But, holding her Lou can feel it with her whole body. Debbie’s shoulders jerk up and down, over and over, her entire body shakes, and the tears drip down Lou’s shoulder and seep into the neckline of the tank top she’s wearing.

**___________________________________________**

 

Lou’s hands are everywhere—Debbie’s sides, her back, her hair. She has absolutely no idea what to say to make this better, but she won’t leave Debbie to deal with any of it on her own again.

When Debbie quiets Lou unwinds her arms to pull back and look at her. “You don’t owe me anything, Deb,” she presses her lips to Debbie’s forehead. “Besides,” she murmurs, “one hundred and fifty million in diamonds was more than enough of an apology.” Debbie half snorts, half hiccups in response, and Lou gently hauls them both off the bathroom floor, clasps Debbie’s hand, and leads her into her own bedroom, turning off everything other than a bedside lamp on the way.

Lou nudges Debbie onto the bed, and Debbie’s breathing picks up again until Lou climbs in after her, patting the pillow, enticing Debbie to lie on her back. She watches Lou’s fingers arrange the ends of her brown hair, dance softly down her sides, and then ghost over the mark on her thigh. Lou’s lips follow, gently trace the raised, jagged line, not going any further, not asking for anything more than  _Debbie,_ exactly where she’s at. Debbie’s breath catches in the way that reminds her she’s alive. Lou crawls up to the pillows beside her and wraps Debbie up against her chest. Debbie presses her lips to Lou’s neck.

“You’re safe here,” Lou tells her. “You can close your eyes." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was rough. It's okay to hate it--constructive criticism makes us better.
> 
> Comments feed the muse <3


	4. Waking Up Changes Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally thought this would be a four-chapter shenanigan.  
> But I got carried away, and this is chapter four, but it is not the end...  
> so here we are. 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm a little worried that this chapter feels out of character, but I hope you enjoy!  
> As always, feedback (even constructive criticism) is always welcome!
> 
> * * * * *
> 
> Previous Chapter summary for those who did not read due to trigger warning:
> 
> Long story short, Debbie was assaulted in prison by another inmate. She finally breaks and tells Lou about it. Lou can't decide whether her blood is going to boil right out of her veins or if she's going to vomit from hearing the story, but she holds Debbie because she doesn't really know what else to do.

Debbie clings impossibly close to Lou, face buried into her neck, legs tangled together, hands twisting into the sides of her tank top. With one of Lou’s arms tight around her waist, and Lou's other hand combing through her hair Debbie can finally,  _finally_  breathe cocooned in the smell of  _Coco Noir_ , soft skin against her thighs, and the ticking of the second hand from the analog clock Lou keeps on her bedside table providing a steady count for her inhale-exhales. Debbie’s mouth presses where Lou’s neck meets her shoulder, slow and wet. Lou waits.

“Lou?” Debbie’s voice is worn from the emotional roller coaster.  
“Yeah Debs?” Lou almost cries when Debbie pulls away from the spot her tongue had been working on and raises her head to properly look at her.

“I love you,” the words are unceremonious in their way, but Debbie reaches up to trace Lou’s cheekbones, her jawline, drag her thumb across Lou’s bottom lip for Lou to catch it lightly between her teeth. “I’m sorry it took me five years, three months, and twenty-five days in prison to figure it out, and all of everything else to tell you.”

“Darling,” Lou tangles her fingers in Debbie’s long hair, cradling the back of her neck and head. “I’ve been gone on you for at least a decade.” They breathe into the kiss--should have been doing it forever—mouths open, tongues stroking, Debbie pressing herself, languid, against the length of Lou all the way down to her toes. There will be time for fireworks later.

Lou pulls back. “Shhh,” she soothes, resting her forehead against Debbie’s for the full counts of a deep breath before burying Debbie’s face back into her neck. “Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

Debbie still doesn’t sleep through the night. But, when she wakes with a scream Lou is there to bring her breathing back to a steady rhythm, to stand guard over her in the dark while Debbie closes her eyes again.

 

*

  

Lou tries to sneak out of bed and leave Debbie to any extra sleep she can get when she wakes up and the clock informs her that it's past 11. She only manages to pull on clean underwear, a pair of black waxed skinny jeans, a white tank top, and half her usual number of rings before she hears whimpering from the bed. Debbie’s eyes are still closed, but her hand is blindly searching the spot where the body she’d been relying on to keep the demons at bay had been just a few minutes earlier.

“I’m right here,” she whispers, slipping back in beside Debbie and gentling her sleeping form back into her arms. Debbie settles again with her head on Lou’s chest, hair spilling wild over her shoulders and down her back. Lou doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything quite so inspiring.

A soft knock and the doorknob turning slowly, as silently as possible, has Lou narrowing her eyes until Tammy slips in through the smallest possible crack and pads across the carpet.

“Amita just called,” Tammy’s voice is quiet enough that Lou has to half read her lips to catch everything.

“She’s wondering if you’re still planning on dropping off that set of emeralds this afternoon.” Tammy doesn’t think twice about where Debbie is, but takes note of just how tightly she seems to be clinging to whatever parts of Lou her fingers can reach.

“She finally cracked?” Tammy smiles sadly, wanting to reach out and brush her fingers through her friends’ bedhead, but not daring the risk of disturbing her.

“It was bad, Tam. Worse than…” Lou clenches her jaw. “Just worse.” To her credit, Tammy doesn’t try to say anything, just nods through a deep breath. “I need to grab something before heading to Amita’s,” Lou changes the subject, still whispering. “Sit with her for a minute, yeah?” She feathers a kiss to the top of Debbie’s head before extricating herself, gesturing for Tammy to sit on the bed in the now-empty spot before stalking out of the room.

Tammy perches right on the edge of the mattress, feeling as though she’s invading something sacred by being here, with Debbie, like this. Debbie’s fingers flex, searching, and cling to Tammy’s hand when she finds it in her sleep.

“Lou’s loved you since the day she met you, you big idiot,” Tammy says softly, aware that she’s probably one of the few people who could get away with calling Debbie Ocean an idiot and live to tell the tale, even if the woman was unconscious when it was said. “I’m glad you finally seem to have figured out that you love her too—the rest of us have known forever.”

 

* 

 

Lou makes her way down the hall to the room Nine-Ball uses when she stays at the loft. The door is open a crack, and she can smell the beginnings of the sweet cloud that will follow the hacker around for the rest of the day. She knocks before pushing the door open. Nine-ball is sitting in the overstuffed armchair next to an open window, a blunt hanging loosely from her fingertips hanging half out the window.  

“You busy?” Lou asks, leaning against the doorframe.  
“What you need?” Nine-Ball pulls a final inhale before setting the blunt in her ashtray and pulling her laptop from the backpack on the floor, beside the chair.  
“If I needed prison-inmate records, could you get them?” Lou asks.  
“That simple,” Nine-Ball’s fingers are already clicking across her keyboard. “From the place your girl was?”  
“Yeah,” Lou drawls. “I need all of Debbie’s cell assignments.”  
“That it?”  
“Don’t mention it to the others.”  
“You got it, motorcycle lady.” Nine-Ball retrieves her blunt for another hit.

 

* 

 

Debbie gasps into consciousness, bleary eyed and disoriented, gripping Tammy’s fingers so tight that Tammy's knuckles crack.

“Lou?” Debbie rasps out.  
“It’s me, Debs,” Tammy says gently, trying to hide the fear at seeing the frenzied look in Debbie’s eyes.  
“Tam-Tam?” She asks, obviously still half dazed from whatever she woke up from the middle of. “Yeah, it’s me,” Tammy tries to re-assure her. 

 

*

 

When Lou walks back into her bedroom Debbie appears to have just woken up from whatever chased her out of sleep this time, her eyes not totally settled into the realization that she isn’t there anymore. Tammy looks unbelievably relieved that Lou has reappeared. Lou crosses the carpet quickly and takes the place that Tammy has abandoned on her bed, beside Debbie, vaguely registering Tammy making a quick exit.

“Hey sleeping beauty,” Lou tucks some hair behind Debbie’s ear. Debbie’s eyes finally start to clear at the sound of Lou’s voice.   
“Woke up without you,” her dark eyes may have come back to reality, but the panic in Debbie’s chest hasn’t quite settled yet.

“I needed to find something for Constance,” Lou kisses Debbie’s cheek, her neck, a soft spot just behind her ear that makes the inhale Debbie was in the middle of hitch for just a second and Lou takes note of it for later, and her lips. “I told Amita I’d drop some of those stones off to her workshop. Do you want to come with me?”

“Jesus, Lou,” Debbie scoffs affectionately. “I may not be able to sleep but I’m not a flight risk.” Lou smiles as  _Debbie_  emerges to start the day.

“Love you, doll-face,” Lou winks. “I’ll be home later.” Before she gets up Debbie pulls Lou in again for a kiss, and then to bury her face against Lou’s neck. After a deep inhale from Debbie, and exhale from Lou they pull apart.

 

*     *     *

 

Debbie chews her bottom lip, still sitting in the middle of Lou’s bed, surrounded by her thousand thread count sheets, as the sound of Lou’s motorcycle echoes down the street. She bites down until she tastes blood and her inhales go harsh.

‘ _I could have imagined it,’_  she tells the inside of her head. She knows she didn't. Deborah Ocean doesn’t imagine things, doesn’t mistake memories, and certainly doesn’t forget things about Louise Miller.

Lou’s worn the same perfume since the first time Debbie stole it for her, except for conquests. Over the years of sharing a one-bedroom apartment Debbie took note that whenever Lou left smelling of light floral notes, rather than dark magnolia mixed with spicy undertones, she always returned much later than usual, with her clothes rumpled and her lips swollen.

 _‘I should have picked up on it years ago,’_   she confesses to nobody but her own mind. The only times Lou sought out anything that wasn’t in Debbie’s orbit she also needed to physically separate herself from the things associated with Debbie, right down to her perfume. 

Maybe the confessions the night before didn’t mean what they did to Debbie, to Lou. She shouldn't have assumed they were promises. Debbie knows Lou deserves better than her. Honestly, Lou deserves better than anybody in the universe, but she certainly deserves somebody who doesn’t take the better part of a decade and a half to figure out that she wants her.

Debbie would be strong enough to deal with it. She would shower, she would go back to her own room, she would get dressed. She would find a way to sleep in her own bed someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments feed the muse <3


	5. Matches Your Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is long! And a little bit meandering... but it gets sexy so that has to count for something!

Lou spends longer in the back room of the jewelry shop than she planned. Amita wants to go over some of the designs—wants to make sure nothing is flashy enough to raise suspicion given the quality of the stones being set.

“I’d put this set of emeralds,” Lou stands behind Amita, both of them bending over the workbench, selecting a uniform set of square-cut gems. “With this setting,” Lou points to a tennis-style bracelet design. “Honestly though Amita,” Lou straightens and cracks her neck to the right, then the left. “You’re probably better to ask Tammy or Deb about this.”

Amita shoots Lou a look of mock-disgust mixed with an eye roll. “You wear more jewelry than the rest of us combined.”  
“Uh, yeah,” Lou winks. “And I don’t choose much of it to fly under the radar.”  
“Good point,” Amita acquiesces, pairing the stones Lou suggested with the bracelet design anyways. “That’s all I need for now. You can go wherever it is that you’ve been chomping at the bit to get to for the last  _hour_.”

 

* 

 

Lou revs her bike coming off the exit ramp from Route 9A. The sun is already starting to dip low in the sky at just past 5 o’clock—spring days haven’t reached into summer yet. At the ‘T’ in the road she turns left instead of right, away from the loft.

When she pulls into the parking lot at the hole-in-the-wall bar Lou parks her bike around the side of the building, as out of sight as possible, and walks in the front door in a full-on strut. The floor is sticky and Lou can just barely make out the door to the kitchen on the other side of the room through the haze of cigar smoke.

Lou flags the bartender as she sprawls into a stool upholstered in cracking vinyl, that squeaks when it turns, next to a redhead in skinny jeans, a low v-neck t-shirt, black ankle boots, and a thick layer of dark plum eyeliner around wild eyes.

“Bourbon, neat,” Lou orders, sliding a hundred across the bar top. “And the lady’s drink of choice,” she lifts an eyebrow to her right. 

“Double whiskey and ginger,” the redhead smiles at the bartender before turning to Lou with a Cheshire-cat grin. “Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you for a while, Lou, not that texts from you aren't always, always welcome. Didn’t Debbie get out of prison?”

“Good to see you too, Evelyn,” Lou shakes her head fondly. “I have some  _post-dated_  business that I need taken care of.” Evelyn’s eyes twinkle, one eyebrow raising. Both of them stay silent when the bartender returns with their drinks. Lou gives him a nod, Evelyn shoots him a naughty wink. “You still have that line in at the prison?” Lou asks without prompting when they’re as alone as they’re going to get sitting at the bar. 

“For you and Debbie? Of course.” Evelyn takes a sip of her drink.  
“You’re sure, Ev?” Lou asks seriously. “This one isn’t exactly smuggling contraband cigarettes and tampons in with a food shipment.”  
“What else do friends have a little sister for?” Evelyn shrugs. “You have names for me?” Lou discreetly shows Evelyn the text Nine-Ball had sent in the afternoon. Evelyn reads them once, twice, three times and commits them to memory.  
“I assume the usual rules of engagement apply?”

Lou nods.

“I’ll take care of it on one condition,” Evelyn throws back the rest of her drink.  
“Go on.”  
“Well, two actually,” Evelyn smirks and crinkles her nose. “First, you leave the rest of that hundred-dollar bill for me to drink my way through, and don’t mention it to Tammy. I kind of told her I’d get out of the business.” She winks. “It’s like learning to sneak out as a teenager all over again.” 

“You got it, Ev,” Lou lets out a single laugh and makes to stand. “What are your big sister’s friends for if it’s not to take you to movies you’re too young to watch?”   
“You’re the best,” Evelyn smiles and stands to hug her. “I always forget how tall you are,” she huffs, having to stand on her tip-toes to put her arms around Lou’s neck.

“You’re just short, kid.” Lou isn’t wrong. Evelyn’s always been dwarfed by Lou, Debbie, and her sister, Tammy.  
She kisses Lou on the cheek. “Give that to Debbie for me. Tell her that I miss her face… and her taste in shoes that she lets me borrow.”   
“Stop by the loft some time,” Lou turns to leave the bar. “Oh,” she turns back.   
“Yes?” Evelyn drawls out.   
“Don’t eat him,” Lou gestures to the bartender that Evelyn has been practically undressing with her eyes through her entire conversation with Lou. “He seems like a nice boy.”

“You’re no fun,” Lou can hear the pout in Evelyn’s voice as she walks through the door, into the evening air, back to her bike to go home. 

 

*     *     *     *     * 

 

“What about this one?” Tammy passes a headshot with a bio on the back across the kitchen table, where they’ve set up camp, to Debbie. “She trained at OCAD, but hasn’t done anything bigger than community theatre since graduating with honours.” 

Debbie looks at the bio first, then turns it over to look at the photo. The woman has black hair and incredible cheekbones, cheekbones that remind her of—she throws it unceremoniously on top of the constantly growing stack of rejects. “Not her.” 

“For Christ’s sake, Deb,” Tammy says, exasperated. “If all you’re going to do is shoot down everybody I suggest, do you just want to do the fencing yourself?”  
“It’s been a long afternoon,” Debbie stands, picking up her empty teacup and moving towards the kitchen. “Let’s give it a rest.” 

“Amita said she’d have the first batch of pieces ready for the end of the week,” Tammy says, tossing the rejected headshots into the recycling bin beside the table. “We don’t have to figure out the who’s who until then anyways.” She carefully stacks the very small number of  _maybes_ on top of the options she and Debbie hadn’t made it through, and slides that stack carefully into the large manila envelope they’d come out of earlier. She barely looks up when the front door clicks open until she hears Debbie ask, “Is Lou with you?” 

“If she was it would have taken me a half hour to get home on the back on her bike instead of the hour and twenty minutes it took on the subway,” it’s Amita who answers. “Seriously, never take the F-Line.” The petite jewelry-maker kicks off her flats and drops her bag onto the table beside Tammy’s stack of paper before realizing Debbie is standing at the edge of the kitchen, still holding her empty teacup, still looking at her. “Seriously, she’s not with me. Haven’t seen her since she left my workshop almost two hours ago.” 

Debbie doesn’t say anything, just blinks, nods, and does an about-face to walk up the stairs, and down the hall, out of sight from Tammy and Amita's vantage point. 

“What’s up with her?” Amita asks, crossing the room, opening the fridge and surveying the selection of coolers, choosing a bright blue one, and digging through the utensil drawer for a bottle opener.

“It’s a twist-off,” Tammy informs, clearing her throat. Amita purses her lips, mildly embarrassed, but then laughs at herself, twists the top off, and leans against the counter. “Lou probably “borrowed” her leather jacket, again,” Tammy answers the original question, getting up from the table to find a drink of her own.

“Who’s leather jacket did Lou borrow?” Constance comes barreling into the room on her skateboard and wipes out over the back of the couch, shrugs, and settles into the cushions. Her board is probably safe stored underneath the sectional.

“Debbie’s, apparently,” Amita tells her.  
“Wait, mom has a leather jacket?” Constance sits up to look over the back of the couch, towards the kitchen, at Tammy.

 

“I think they technically stole it together.” Tammy tries to remember what the story about where it came from had been when Debbie and Lou appeared at her apartment after her last exam during her second year of college. They were weighed down by the biggest bottle of champagne Tammy had ever seen, five new shades of lipstick for her to choose from to use to help find her ‘summer fling,’ as she was pretty sure Debbie put it, wearing the sleek black leather jacket with oversized lapels and gold zippers draped around her shoulders. Tammy didn’t remember a huge amount of that night clearly after they’d popped the cork. “Debbie always wore it, though.” 

“Badass,” Constance bobs her head approvingly. 

“I’m going to start something for dinner,” Tammy says, escaping the conversation that’s about to turn back to the topic of Debbie and Lou that she’s constantly trying to avoid. She’s worried about Debbie again—she’s been off all day. Not angry, and not stressed; maybe a touch restless and a little bit sad. Tammy’d assumed Debbie would be more content than she’d been in ages given the scene that morning. 

 

*

 

She slides down the wall on the far side of the bed from the door to her room, with a bottle of vodka that she grabbed from Lou’s study on her way down the hall. She doesn’t think it’s watered down.  _If nothing else, Lou has good taste in alcohol._  

_Lou._

It’s not that Debbie’s spent all afternoon hoping Lou would walk through the door earlier than usual, instead of later. She’d gone over security details with Nine-Ball, and then started working on fencing logistics with Tammy when Nine-Ball said she had some other things to work on. She’d frozen every time one of the team walked into the loft, and her ears had strained every time she heard a hint of anything that might sound like a motorcycle. None of the times had been Lou, and she hadn’t expected the physical pain in her chest from what it meant, and maybe,  _maybe_  she could admit that to herself, in the quiet of her room with the door closed.

The bottle top twists off with a series of small crackles when the seal breaks.  _Definitely not watered down, then_. The first pull burns down the back of Debbie’s throat the second feels flat. Everything feels more vivid with each swallow, instead of turning numb. She twists the top back on and shoves the bottle across the hardwood floor. It skids noisily until bumping into the mahogany dresser. With the stillness ringing in her ears Debbie pulls her knees up to her chest, crosses her arms over the top of them, and drops her head on top of her arms. She’s determined not to cry. She already did that in the bathroom last night, with Lou, and then again in the shower this morning, after Lou.

She starts counting backwards from 100, forcing her breaths into ten-count measures—five in, five out, forces herself to tune out of the sounds from the girls downstairs, and the traffic outside.

She makes it down to zero and starts again, and again after that. She’s at 25 on her third round when the door to her bedroom opens.

“Debs?” Debbie doesn’t pick her head up, hears Lou close the door behind her and pad across the smooth floor. “Deb?” She doesn’t look up until Lou’s crouching in front of her, tucking a piece of dark hair behind her ear. 

“Hey Lou,” Debbie finally responds, eyes sweeping Lou up and down. She smells smokier than usual, but there’s no signs of smudged lipstick, and none of her clothing is out of place. The airy-scented perfume from the morning has worn off.  

“What happened, baby?” Lou nods towards the discarded bottle of Vodka across the room. “You’re only two fingers into that, not even you could get drunk off that amount.” It’s true—Debbie’s never been a heavy drinker, a fact that led to many funny, though also embarrassing and not-cute stories during her party days with Lou and Tammy.

“I’ll be fine, Lou,” She sounds tired. “How was your day?”  

“That crap might work with the girls,” Lou sighs. “It might even work on Tammy if luck is on your side,” she strokes Debbie’s cheek. “But it doesn’t work on me.” Lou moves close until she can nudge of Debbie’s temple with her nose, and whisper in her ear. “Talk to me, baby.”

Lou doesn’t understand, starts to wonder if maybe Debbie regrets opening up the night before. Things were fine—easy like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place before she left in the morning, after talking to Nine-Ball and… it all clicks and Lou closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I’m going to kill Constance,” she mutters. 

“Constance?”  
“The perfume,” Lou’s blunt about it and Debbie freezes. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

Debbie hangs her head.

“Debs,” Lou forces Debbie to look at her with a finger under her chin. “Sweetheart, Constance ambushed me in the hall after I went to talk to Nine-Ball this morning; sprayed two things that smelled the same, but were apparently different brands, in my face, and asked which one I thought would be better for her first co-op board meeting.” Lou rolls her eyes at the memory of Constance quite literally appearing out of nowhere, and then all but vanishing into thin, floral-scented air. “I didn’t even think…” Lou moves to sit in front of Debbie, and softly pulls her forward until she’s between her knees. “It’s you, sweetheart. It’s only you,” and Debbie doesn’t get the chance to say anything back because it’s Lou’s lips, and Lou’s hands, and then Debbie’s pressing forward until Lou is underneath her on the floor with her hips between Debbie’s thighs.

Lou breaks the kiss when she flips them over, leaning down and flicking her tongue over Debbie’s pulse point. She finds the soft spot behind Debbie’s ear that she took note of the night before and sucks, hard, wants to leave a mark that tells everyone they belong to each other. Debbie’s inhales go choppy and Lou smirks, soothing a kiss over the bruise. “I’ve never wanted anybody the way I want you,” her lips trace across Debbie’s jaw.

“Bed,” Debbie stammers when Lou’s mouth finds her neck again.

Lou perches on the edge of the bed with Debbie standing between her knees while she works the buttons down the front of Debbie’s cream-coloured silk blouse open, chasing each new inch of skin with her tongue until she reaches the final button and Debbie shrugs the fabric onto the floor. She flicks the back clasp of Debbie’s lacy blue bra open and tosses it on top of the blouse before leaning forward to take a dusty pink nipple between her lips, teasing it with her tongue and following with her teeth, weighing its pair in her palm. Debbie gasps, tangling her fingers in Lou’s hair.

Lou pulls away to look at her lover’s dark eyes, kiss-swollen lips, stiff nipples. “You’re beautiful,” she whispers reverently.

Debbie catches Lou’s up in a kiss, worships her, moves her fingers to the velvet-covered buttons of her vest. “Why are you still dressed?” her voice is low in Lou’s ear when she tears their lips apart. The vest is pushed off Lou’s shoulders and Debbie moves down to the waistband of Lou’s pants, popping the button and fly, prompting Lou to lift her hips so she can work them down and drop to her knees when she tugs them off her ankles. 

Debbie bites and sucks and kisses her way up the inside of Lou’s thighs, so close to right where Lou wants her, and when she gets there, runs her tongue up Lou’s slit, flicks the tip over her clit, reveling in the taste of her with a moan that Lou feels just as much as she hears.

Lou groans when Debbie lips close around her clit, tighter this time. Then it’s a finger, and two, and she isn’t sure she remembers how to breathe when she looks down and sees Debbie’s dark eyes watching as though a masterpiece is being carved from marble and she needs to see how every curve forms along the way. 

When she falls apart it’s with Debbie’s name on her lips, Debbie’s tongue on her clit, Debbie’s fingers sliding out to caress her thighs while her mouth slows its pace, gentling her back down to Earth.

The first thing Lou does when she can think straight again is to pull Debbie back to her feet and back to her lips, tasting herself and making quick work of pushing Debbie's pants and panties over her hips, to the floor for her to step out of. She lifts Debbie onto the bed, and flips them so she’s hovering over her, working her way down Debbie’s body with her tongue. She’s all short gasps and trembles until Lou’s mouth traces that scar up the inside of her thigh. She feels Debbie tense, looks up to see her brown eyes frozen, clouded by a moment from months ago that Lou wasn’t there to protect her from. 

“Shit,” Lou curses, moving to Debbie’s side and pulling her close. “I’m so sorry, Debs. We can stop right now. Don’t have to do anything again until you…”

“Please Lou,” her words are soft and pleading and Debbie doesn’t need to say anything else for Lou to understand.  _Please_  don’t stop;  _Please_  don’t leave;  _Please_  make me forget; and Lou never has been good at denying Deborah Ocean anything she asks for.

She moves up the bed and leans against the headboard, leading Debbie until she’s straddling Lou’s lap. Fingers dance over Debbie’s hips, caress her back, ghost the underside of her breasts while Lou kisses her, soft and slow, and when Lou's long fingers find their way between Debbie's thighs, Debbie lets out the softest sigh Lou's ever heard and then gasps when Lou's thumb finds her clit. It doesn't take long to feel Debbie start to unravel, Lou's fingers pumping in and out, her thumb working small circles. Debbie comes trembling overtop of her, leaking down her fingers, to her palm, dripping onto her lover's thighs. 

Lou pulls her fingers from Debbie slowly, still caressing one hip with her other hand, and licks her fingers obscenely. “You’re delicious.”

Debbie’s eyes are still fogged over from what Lou can do with her hands when she leans over to dig through the nightstand drawer. She pulls out a combination lock-box that Lou distinctly remember stuffing in there when she moved all of Debbie’s things, and never had the energy to put into cracking the three-digit combination to find out what was inside. 

She opens the lid and sifts through a few foreign currency notes, a photo of her and Danny when they were teenagers, and from the back corner pulls out a ring. She sets the box aside and holds the piece of jewelry in front of Lou, between her thumb and index finger. It has a sapphire framed by a small pearl on each side, set in vintage gold.

“This is literally the only family heirloom I have,” Debbie starts. “My mother’s side—which makes the fact that it even still exists make a lot more sense,” she laughs to herself, takes a deep breath, and looks Lou in the eye when she goes on. “It was my great-grandmothers, and she was married for 60 years and loved my great-grandfather more every single day. He worshiped the ground she walked on. I know it’s not a diamond, but it would match your eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ehhh? I don't usually write the sexy-times, so hopefully this was enjoyable.
> 
> Comments, as always, feed the muse <3


	6. I Love You in Louboutin's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the final chapter in all of its soft, hopeless-romantic glory. 
> 
> Hopefully it's all the things everyone's wanted :)

Lou stares at the ring Debbie’s holding, waiting for her brain to catch up.  
“Marry me, Lou,” Debbie traces Lou’s jaw. “Marry me.”

Lou finally comes-to and pulls Debbie in for a gentle kiss, ignoring her protest about how quickly she pulls away. “Today,” Lou says, levelling her blue eyes that really do match the ring with Debbie’s chocolate ones. “Right now.”

“Baby,” Debbie’s hand trails down Lou's neck to rest on her collarbone. “I’d marry you right here. But I think we might need to wait 24 hours for a marriage license,” she pauses, chewing the inside of her cheek. “I want to do this for real. No fake names or documents.  _Us_.”

“I was still wide awake when you fell asleep last night. I may have applied for a thing or two,” Lou confesses, looking over Debbie’s shoulder to the clock hanging on the wall. “It’s 7:30. We have an hour and a half before the courthouse closes.”

Debbie picks up Lou’s left hand from where it rests on the sheets pooled around Debbie's thighs and slides the heirloom ring onto her finger. “It fits,” she whispers, pressing her forehead against Lou’s. “I love you.”

 

*

 

Wearing skinny white pants tucked into Louboutin ankle booties, a silk blouse, and the leather jacket she’d reclaimed from her fiancée, Debbie allows Lou to lead her out of her bedroom, signalling that they should both be quiet, and down the hall to the staircase that leads directly out the loft’s side door.

Debbie grabs Lou’s wrist after making sure to close the door as quietly as possible, and pulls her as close as she can manage, pressing their lips together. One of her hands cradles the back of Lou’s head, the other drifts to the collection of chains hanging around Lou’s neck, fingering the various pendants, tracing the low v of the white vest under the leather jacket that actually  _belongs_  to Lou, slipping just underneath to tease the edge of her lace bra. Lou pushes Debbie back into the door with a groan, pressing her leather-clad hips into her lover’s, before pulling away and stepping back, tugging Debbie towards her motorcycle.

“We’ve got places to go, darling.”

 

*

 

“Where are they sneaking off to?” Constance asks, slurping a spaghetti noodle when the group around the kitchen table hears Lou’s bike pulling out of the garage, and down the street.

“Can we talk and chew  _not_  at the same time?” Amita asks, side-eyeing Constance. Daphne snorts into her glass of wine. Constance sticks her tongue out at Amita before taking another slurp, this one definitely more pronounced, definitely on purpose. Tammy shakes her head, not missing the fondness underlying the entire exchange.

Nine-Ball twirls a forkful of the pasta with one hand and taps her keyboard with the other. She stares at the screen briefly, her laptop balanced on the corner of the table beside her. “I got nothing,” she shrugs and abandons her laptop in favour of her cellphone, tapping around on the screen while everyone returns to their food.

 _I got your asses covered for now, but you better be back to tell them by midnight or I’m saving myself.  
_ _-read: 7:45pm_

*

 

Lou’s balanced sideways on the seat of her motorcycle with Debbie standing between her legs in the far corner of the courthouse parking lot, after the place has closed for the night. She moves her hand inside Debbie’s leather jacket searching for a firmer hold on her waist when she feels the cool metal of the band wrapped around Debbie’s left ring finger brush against her jaw before fingers tangle in her hair. The one stop they made between the loft and the courthouse had been for two weddings bands. Debbie insisted she didn’t need an engagement ring, Lou insisted on her having diamonds. They settled on thin bands inlaid with eternity-diamonds.

Debbie pulls her lips from her wife’s to kiss a trail across her cheekbone, down to her jaw, stopping to nibble on her pulse point until she feels Lou’s breath hitch, continues long enough to leave a mark, and finally whispers in her ear, “Take me home, Mrs. Ocean.”

Lou’s grip on Debbie’s waist tightens at the use of her new name. Debbie hadn’t even really thought about it on the way to the courthouse, just assumed they would keep their last names as-is. Then, when they had been signing and sealing the paperwork and Lou told her that she’d really rather be tied to Debbie, and her legacy for the rest of their lives than the train wreck she’d left half a world away, half a lifetime ago. The statement was so sure and casual that Debbie'd had to do a double take before she could process what Lou was telling her.  _"Danny would have loved having you as an Ocean."_

Lou lets out a low growl, pouncing for a final nip at Debbie’s bottom lip, then smirks, gets onto the bike properly, and holds out a hand to help Debbie on behind her. She waiting until Debbie’s thighs bracket her own snuggly, and her arms wrap around her waist and she can feel Deb’s heat soaking into her back before putting the engine in gear and pealing out of the parking lot, towards the freeway. 

Debbie doesn’t think she’s ever hated wearing a helmet on Lou’s bike quite as much as she does right now, on the way home from making their partnership a lot more legal, and a lot more than just business. She wants to run her lips along the side of Lou’s neck, tongue the spot where it meets her shoulder until she shudders, but there are two helmets and too many layers of leather in the way. She settles for tugging the zipper on Lou’s jacket down just a little, until she can slip her fingers inside to rest on her wife’s ribs, brushing the underside of her breast.  

 

*

 

Lou and Debbie walk back into the loft, hands laced together, to find everyone gathered around Nine-Ball’s laptop, with a newsreel playing on the screen.

“Have you seen this?” Tammy asks the returning pair.   
“Yo, Debbie,” Constance throws over her shoulder without looking away from whatever they’re all watching. “Wasn’t this where you were?”

Still wearing her heels and leather jacket, Debbie crosses the room to see the screen over Rose’s shoulder. There’s a news anchor talking in front of video footage showing  _Nichols Women_ _’_ _s Prison_  with smoke rising from one of the cell blocks, lines of inmates being led outside in handcuffs to sit in alphabetical order, and firefighters bringing the flames back under control.

 _"We_ _’ve received an update that at least four inmates will be charged with arson in relation to this incident,”_ a black-haired, olive-skinned news anchor says.  _“Some will face up to double their sentence as a result.”_

It’s the names and mugshots that appear on the screen that have Debbie flicking her eyes to Lou, who has appeared at her side, briefly to Tammy, who has a look of panic creeping into her eyes and is pulling her cellphone from her back pocket, and back to Lou, who wraps an arm around Debbie’s waist and pulls her across the living room, away from the group.

“Did you have something to do with that?” Debbie asks quietly enough that only Lou is able to hear her, holding her elbow while Lou holds hers in return. Lou smirks and leans forward to place a chaste kiss on Debbie’s cheek.

“That’s from Evelyn, said to tell you she misses you,” Lou whispers. “She also misses your shoe collection.”  
“Nobody dies?” Debbie chews her bottom lip.  
“I know our rules,” Lou assures her. “So does Ev." 

They might manipulate, scheme, and steal but they’ve always maintained the unspoken rule that none of their plans should ever end with anybody’s life, no matter who it was. 

“Does Tam-Tam know her baby sister is back to her old tricks?” Debbie peers over Lou’s shoulder, towards the kitchen where she saw Tammy disappeared a few minutes earlier. 

 _“Dammit, Evelyn-Dawn, answer your phone.”_ They hear Tammy’s exasperated whisper, answering the question for them.

“I promised I wouldn’t rat her out,” Lou mutters, glancing over her shoulder in the direction Tammy's voice came from. “But if she didn’t want Tammy to find out she really should have gone with something a little less  _her_  style.” Lou’s hands rest on Debbie’s hips. “We should probably get her something nice for her birthday this year. Maybe her very own pair of those sex-in-stilettos Louboutin’s on your feet.” Debbie smirks. Lou pulls her in closer. Debbie tucks a few strands of platinum hair behind Lou’s ear, then rests her hand gently against Lou’s jawline.

 “Thank you.”

“Holy shit,” Amita's attention has moved away from the screen, towards Debbie and Lou, her eyes zeroing in on the way Debbie’s finger is catching the light as it rests against Lou’s neck. She’s across the room before any of the others figure out what she's squealing about, grabbing at Debbie’s hand. Her eyes go wide and her jaw goes slack when she moves on from Debbie and gets a look at Lou’s hand. “Holy.  _Shit,_ ” She holds her wedding-set up, Lou’s hand and all, to the light. “This in vintage!” Debbie just nods while Amita looks back and forth between the two of them before returning to attention to the new piece Lou wears. “As in  _actual_  vintage. Not inspired-by, not designed-to-look-like. Actual custom-made in... my guess is the 20's. Do you know how much this is  _worth_?”

Tammy reappears from the kitchen when she hears Amita's high pitched and excited voice, grabs Debbie’s left hand to confirm what she thinks she just heard, for herself.

“Wait,” Constance is the next to join the swarm. “You got hitched without us?” They’re joined by an over-exited Daphne gushing about how perfectly the blue of the sapphire matches Lou’s eyes—Debbie winks at her wife—and a smiling Rose babbling about not getting to design their dresses. Nine-Ball remains lounging where she is wearing a smug smile. 

“Yes, we did, actually,” Debbie directs to Constance. “And yes,” she says to Amita. “I do.”

Lou watches Debbie, can see the contentedness in her eyes, how genuine her smile is, but can also see the exhaustion from the last however-long lacing gradually into her features—one decent night of sleep doesn’t make up for every night previous.

“That’s enough rounds of 20 questions,” Lou’s lilt carries over the group as she reaches for her wife. “If you’ll excuse me,” she begins to back out of the room, leading Debbie by the hand. “I have a wedding night to see to.” Constance groans, and Rose practically swoons.

 

*

 

Lou leads Debbie passed the guest room that houses Debbie’s thing, and into her bedroom— _their_ bedroom. Debbie closes the door behind them and turns away from Lou to flick the lock. When she turns back, Lou is pressing her into the door with hungry lips, firm hands running from her hips to her waist, and a thigh pressing between her legs. Lou feels more than hears the soft moan that escapes when Debbie rolls her hips against the thigh pressing into her centre, even through a layer of leather on Lou’s part and denim on Debbie’s.  

Lou grasps Debbie’s hips and spins them away from the door, backing her wife to the bed and pressing into her until she sits on the mattress. She breaks their kiss to step back, locking her eyes with Debbie’s while her fingers dance down Debbie’s left leg until she can tug the ankle boot off of Debbie’s foot, repeating the action with its pair. Holding both red-soled shoes by their stiletto heels in one hand, Lou hooks her other hand behind Debbie’s knee and pulls until her partner is sitting right at the edge of the mattress and Lou can step into the v of her legs and press their upper bodies against each other.

“Next time,” Lou growls in Debbie’s ear. “I want you in these and nothing else.”     
“Christ, Lou,” Debbie whispers and seals their lips together in the most reverent kiss Lou’s ever had.  
“I love you, y’know,” Lou says when they slowly pull apart, resting her forehead against Debbie’s.

“It’s you, Lou,” Debbie breathes out in the moment of stillness. “It’s  _always_  been you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went soft. Couldn't help it.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read this, and especially those who have taken the time to leave kudos and comments! I may have a couple other ideas for these two that need to be written out of my head in the near-future.
> 
> <3


End file.
